Current reports

Wooli

A few months ago, I wrote in the newsletter, that I’d be disappointed if I didn’t catch mullet any time I went fishing at Wooli.  Well, we spent a week at Wooli in mid September and even though I didn’t catch any mullet (although I tried on 3 or 4 occasions) I really wasn’t that disappointed.  The township of Wooli is just east of Grafton on a narrow spit of land at the mouth of the Wooli River.  We were staying right on the beach, with the river only a block away.

This time round I took the canoe up to fish the Clarence River at Copmanhurst, where I managed to land a 31cm bass using a small Chernobyl Ant, and miss a couple of others.  Even though it’s a beautiful section of river and not much more than an hours drive from Wooli, we only went up there once – when I’m ensconced in Wooli it’s almost impossible to move me.

Over the week, I fished the river and beach on numerous occasions and had no joy at all in my attempts at catching whiting, bream and mullet.  The highlight of the trip was landing 3 silver (?) trevally (between 35 and 39 cm) over a couple of evening sessions at the western end of the breakwall at the mouth of the Wooli River.  I’ve been going to Wooli for many years now and it intrigued and frustrated me that, often in the evenings, as the tide was turning, baitfish would erupt on the far side of the river and no matter what flies or lures I threw, they were either out of range or unappetising to the predators.  This time around the fish were more receptive.  The most effective fly was one that Micah Adams described as brilliant for catching estuary perch in a talk he gave the Club a number of years ago.  It’s essentially a chartreuse bodied Crazy Charlie with a dark green wing containing half a dozen strands of crystal flash tied on a #4 hook.

This fly proved to be extremely versatile on this trip.  As well as catching the trevally, it also accounted for 3 flathead in the surf (sadly they were only about 15cm long) and a pike of 40cm when, one evening, the fly was stripped quickly over a weed bed in the river.  I’m yet to catch an estuary perch on it though.

Radge Diakiw

Salmon fest Friday, 30th of September, 2005

Had a great day out on the water with an early morning start of 5.30 a.m.  I was at North Head by 5.45 a.m. and saw, what was for me, the biggest salmon school of the Winter/Spring so far.  The schools were spread out between North Head and Quarantine and I managed three nice salmon before the schools disappeared.  Unfortunately, I broke my Strudwick on the third fish, but luckily had my spare travel rod on board.  I motored over to Bluefish and mooched around for not much, but then saw a huge flock of birds and decided to investigate.  For the next two hours there was only another guy (Peter D— sorry Peter, I don’t know your surname) and myself out there, both swoffing!  This fishing session was the most enjoyable and memorable flyfishing experience I have ever had since I started up this great form of fishing 3 years ago.   I managed eight fish and dropped about four others.  I was using a 7 wt rod, intermediate line, 18 pound fluoro leader and the fly of choice was the “eye”, Peter was having lots of success using candies.

Ken Wong